The down-payment constraint and UK housing market: Does the theory fit the facts?

This paper considers empirical implications of the down-payment constraint for the UK housing market. It shows that, at the aggregate-level, models of the housing market with this constraint are consistent with a number of stylized facts. The paper then exploits variation across local housing markets and considers how leverage affects the response of house price inflation to shocks. The evidence, based on data for 147 district-level housing markets for the period 1993–2002, suggests that a large incidence of households with high leverage (loan-to-value ratios) raises the sensitivity of house prices to a shock. This is also consistent with the down-payment constraint model.